"Same thing."

"Maybe."

"Where are we sleeping tonight?"

He arched one dark eyebrow. "We?"

"We." She stepped in close. "I have an apology to make," she reminded him.

She was standing so close, Jonas could feel the heat of her body, and smell her perfume, that heady mix of flowers, lemons, and hot, desirable woman. "I keep an apartment in London," he admitted. "For the nights I need to stay in town."

Lily tilted her head. "Alone?"

Jonas scowled. "Now why would you be interested in knowing that?"

Possibly because Lily had admitted to herself she was already halfway in love with him, and the thought of Jonas with any other woman tied her stomach up in knots.

It was so not the time for this, and Jonas was probably the last man she should fall in love with, but... Their time together earlier today had been a revelation.

Beneath that calm, unemotional exterior, she now knew Jonas was a man of deep pa.s.sions. Desire. Want. Need. Overwhelming intensity. He had shown her all those emotions in his lovemaking earlier.

Lily had not only felt owned this morning, but also cherished, appreciated. She doubted Jonas was even aware it. But she was, so how could she help but fall in love with him?

A love she would do well to keep to herself if she didn't want Jonas to start running in the opposite direction.

She had watched her brothers with women the past ten years, seen them enjoying the chase and as quickly losing interest once they had captured and bedded their quarry. And G.o.d forbid those women should ever fall in love with any of them. That was a sure way to end the relationship.

Jonas was too much like them not to react in the same way.

That likeness to her brothers was not only ironic, it was probably also fate's idea of a joke. She had spent years trying to get away from her overprotective brothers, only to fall in love with a man who was exactly like them.

Fate or not, she knew better than to give Jonas even a hint of her feelings for him. "I suppose we can always change the sheets," she said dismissively.

His jaw tightened. "I don't take women to Larchwood Forest or my apartment."

Lily gave no outward sign of her inner elation at the admission. "Then where do you take them?" she teased.

He shrugged. "A hotel. Their apartment."

"Ah." She gave a knowing nod. "It avoids that 'when the h.e.l.l is she going to leave' the morning after."

"You've spent too much time around your brothers."

She smiled ruefully. "Be afraid, Jonas. Be very afraid."

Jonas was afraid. Not of Lily per se, but of who and what she was becoming to him. The one woman who was capable of getting past his emotional barriers and burrowing deep beneath his skin.

Chapter 10.

Jonas's apartment was absolutely nothing like the house he had built for himself in Larchwood Forest. Instead, it was obviously exactly what he had said it was, somewhere for him to sleep on the nights he had to stay in London.

Lily hated it on sight.

The kitchen was so pristine, she would be surprised if Jonas had ever brewed so much as a cup of coffee in there. The completely white bathroom was also characterless. There were none of Jonas's paintings on the walls, and the sitting room and bedroom had only the bare minimum of furniture.

The bedroom.

Because there was only one bedroom, dominated by the huge king-size bed necessary to accommodate Jonas's height and breadth.

"Sure you don't want me to take you back to Gabriel's house?"

Lily turned from looking at that bed and the images in her head of her and Jonas beneath the bedclothes together. "Absolutely."

"Your choice." Jonas dropped the keys to the SUV in a bowl on the breakfast bar then stepped into the kitchen area to look inside the fridge, as if her answer was of little importance to him.

And maybe it was.

She and Jonas had been thrust together through circ.u.mstances rather than choice. She doubted Jonas would have given an actress a second glance otherwise. But as he had...

Lily followed him into the kitchen before putting her arms about his waist and resting her cheek against his back. Jonas tensed, and then as quickly relaxed as one of his hands moved to encompa.s.s both of hers as they rested on his abdomen. "I don't want to go to Gabriel's, but can we please go to my apartment?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't like it here." Her voice was husky. "There's nothing of you here, Jonas. It's cold and impersonal."

"I'm cold and impersonal."

"Oh puh-lease," Lily dismissed impatiently. "That isn't going to fly anymore. Not after this morning." Jonas had been anything but cold and impersonal during his lovemaking. He had been demanding, claiming her totally, time after time without respite. As for the things he said to her in the heat of that lovemaking... Lily felt a warmth in her cheeks every time she thought about them.

"You know exactly what I mean." He sighed. "Earlier today was-"

"Exceptional? Mind-blowing?" Perfect. Amazing. Unforgettable.

Lily really wished she could see Jonas's face and somehow gauge what he was thinking or feeling. But he kept a tight hold on her hands to prevent her from moving to face him.

"Yes," he acknowledged tersely. "But," he continued firmly before she could answer him, "it can't happen again. Not like that."

"Why the h.e.l.l not?" Lily was too irritated to even attempt to conceal it. "That isn't what you implied at Gabriel's earlier."

"I was defusing an explosive situation-"

"So you lied?" Lily pulled her hands out of his grasp before stepping back, the pain in her heart far outweighing the wrenching of her wrists.

Jonas spun round. "I didn't lie-"

"You exaggerated the truth," she said scornfully. "It's okay, Jonas, I get it." She held up her hand to stop him as he would have moved toward her. "I was just another one-night stand to you. A diversion to pa.s.s the time away during a snowstorm."

Jonas wanted to deny it, should deny it, because that wasn't how it had been at all. But wasn't it better to end that part of their relationship now, before one or both of them were hurt?

He didn't fit into Lily's world any more than she did in his, and once this situation was over, she would know that too. Would realize how like her brothers he was, that he was part of their world, not hers, and she wouldn't want to be with him anyway.

I don't have to be part of their world. I'm there because I choose to be.

Yeah, maybe he was, but what was he going to do instead if he gave that up? Paint professionally, as Lily had suggested? He couldn't see that happening. He didn't need to work at all, had more than enough money to- f.u.c.k, he couldn't do this. A serious relationship, permanence, marriage, and kids wasn't for someone like him.

Seth has done it.

Seth wasn't like him. Oh, on the outside Seth had seemed like him, but inside he had hungered, needed, wanted permanence, marriage, and kids, family, the whole nine yards.

Jonas was a man without a tribe or family. The former through choice, the latter through circ.u.mstances. He was a cold, solitary b.a.s.t.a.r.d, had nothing, absolutely nothing to offer any woman, let alone one as warm and emotional as Lily. A woman who valued family despite her differences with her brothers.

Jonas could never be a part of that. He had no right even thinking of wanting to be a part of that. "Lily-"

"Don't say another word." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her shoulder bag, two bright spots of angry color in her cheeks. "I'm going back to my apartment. You can please yourself as to whether or not you come with me. Let go of my arm, Jonas," she warned as he grasped her wrist.

"The police are doing all they can to find the killer, but you won't be completely safe until he's been caught." Jonas had telephoned the police before leaving his house in Larchwood and informed them Lily was coming back to town. They, in turn, had told him they had no new leads as yet on who was responsible for the two murders or stalking Lily. The murder weapon, Charlie's walking stick, had been wiped of prints. The two crushed cell phones weren't giving up any information either. "Going back to your apartment is a bad idea."

Her eyes narrowed in warning. "I take full responsibility for my own actions, which means I'm going back to my apartment, with or without you."

"Don't be an idiot."

She shrugged. "My brothers own the building, and you and I both know that means it has state-of-the-art security, inside as well as out."

All that was true, but Jonas was far from happy with Lily going anywhere on her own. "I have a job to do-"

"Then f.u.c.king well do it and come with me."

His jaw clenched. "What did I tell you about your language?"

She gave a disdainful snort. "I don't answer to you, Jonas."

"You don't answer to anyone. That's half the problem."

"And the other half?"

"You're a stubborn little fool."

She nodded. "A stubborn little fool who is spending the night at her own apartment. Don't worry, if you come with me, you'll be perfectly safe," she taunted. "You can sleep on the couch."

Jonas narrowed his eyes at her derisive tone as much as her words. That spanking he had promised her was becoming more and more of a certainty. "I'll sleep where I d.a.m.n well please."

"I don't think so." She shook her head. "I try never to repeat the same mistake twice."

So now she thought going to bed with him was a mistake? Wonderful. Just f.u.c.king marvelous.

"I'm coming with you," he announced flatly. "We'll pick up some takeout on the way there."

Lily gave no outward sign of her relief at Jonas's capitulation. But that didn't mean she didn't feel it inside. She truly didn't want to stay in this impersonal apartment, but she didn't want to be alone either. Not when her stalker and Charlie and Evan's murderer could be lying in wait somewhere. Even thinking about being on her own, if he should find her, made Lily feel weak at the knees.

"Stop!"

"Don't order me about, Jonas. And take your hands off me-"

"The f.u.c.king door's open."

Lily froze in the hallway and her startled gaze turned to the door to her apartment. Jonas was right, the door was slightly ajar. And the reason it was became obvious as she saw the lock was broken, the wood splintered in the doorframe, as if the door had been kicked open from the outside.

"Stay here." Jonas put her behind him as he took the gun from the waistband of his jeans. "For once in your life, don't argue, just f.u.c.king do as you're told," he growled as he stepped forward to approach that open door.

Lily's heart was in her throat. What if the person who had broken in was still inside her apartment? What if they had a gun too? What if they fired it and- "Jonas, stop!" Her voice broke as she called out to him.

He turned to give her one of those deathly stares. The sort of glare that promised retribution once he'd secured her apartment.

"You could be hurt," she whispered in appeal.

"Let's hope for your sake I'm totally incapacitated," he came back harshly. "Because if I'm not, your backside is going to be so sore, you won't be able to sit down for a week."

Lily flinched at the vehemence in his tone. At the unmistakable threat that he really was going to spank her this time.

And she truthfully didn't care, because if Jonas spanked her, then he had to still be alive and unhurt to do it.

She loved him.

She wasn't falling in love with him, or halfway in love with him, she already loved him. And he was putting himself in danger because she had insisted on coming back to her apartment against his advice. If anything happened to him because of that, she would never forgive herself.

She put the bag of takeout carefully down on the floor before pressing herself against the wall and moving farther along the hallway. She watched Jonas slowly push open her apartment door before disappearing inside the darkness. She had no idea what she was going to do if she heard a shot when she was unarmed, but she needed to be close to Jonas. To be there for him.

There was no shot, only achingly long seconds of waiting. Seconds that seemed more like hours as Lily listened intently for some indication of what Jonas was doing.

Maybe she should go into the apartment herself?

If she kept herself pressed against the wall, made herself as small as possible, she could inch inside and- "And where the h.e.l.l do you think you're going?" Jonas loomed in front of her the moment she slipped inside the darkness of her apartment. "Never mind." He pulled her fully inside and closed the door. The only illumination came from the moon shining in through the windows of the sitting room. "I am so sick of you disobeying me."

"The intruder isn't here-"

"You didn't know that."

"Then punish me," she pleaded. "Don't think about it, Jonas, just do it."

"What?"

She could feel his tension in the hand that still grasped her arm. "Just do it."